Gas-producer apparatus.



No 791,461. PATENTBD JUNE 6, 1905.

- v 0. ELLIS.

GAS PRODUCER APPARATUS.

APPLICATION FILED DBO. i2,190 4.

I 3 SHEETS-SHIJET 1.

' -BY A VATTORNEYS No. 791,461, PATENTBD JUNE 6, 1905.

; ELLIS.

' GAS P GER APPARATUS.

1321.1 FILED DEO.12,1904. x I SBHBETS-SHEET 2.

24 I I I8 l6 I7 26 WITNESSES: b, 28

PATENTED-JUNB 6, 1905.

3 SHEETS-SHEET 3.

8 v I /////////////////W///////// Y r c ELLIS 4 GAS PRODUCER APPARATUS.

z 2 V a 5 kfg if w 4 UNITED STATES Patented. June 6, 1905.

CARLETON ELLIS, OF NEW YORK, N. Y.

GAS-PRODUCER APPARATUS.

SPECIFICATION formingpart of Letters Patent No. 791,461, dated June 6,1905. Application filed December 12, 1904.. Serial No. 236,452.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, OARLETON ELLIs, a citizen of the United States,residing at New York city, county and State of New York, have inventedcertain new and useful Improvements in Gas-Producer Apparatus, of whichthe following specification and accompanying drawings disclose as anillustration one embodiment thereof which I now regard as the best outof the various forms in which the principles of my invention may beapplied.

This invention relates to gas-producer apparatus, and especially thosein which a portion of the products of combustion from the furnace inwhich the producer-gas is burned or from other convenient source isreturned to the producer and passed through the bed of'fuel therein. 1have discovered'that these products, owing to their neutral characterand to the presence of carbonic acid, may, by properly regulating theirtemperature, be made the means of keeping down the temperature of theproducer and avoiding the pro duction of soot and slag or clinkers inobjectionable amounts without requiring the use of steam as a cooler.Itis well known that steam has heretofore been largely utilized for thatpurpose, but is open to serious objections, principally due to theimperfect decomposition which the steam undergoes inpassing through thefuel-bed. It also requires a much higher temperature for itsdecompositionnamely,about 1,900 Fahrenheit and above than CO whichsplits up at about 1,2OO ,and I can therefore not only run the producercooler, but obtain a range of operation some 700 greater than withsteam. This discovery whereby I substitute neutral stack-gases for steamand regulate the temperature of the draft with reference to itscomposition and the slagging-point ofthe particular fuel used is notbroadly claimed herein, being made the subject of copendingapplications, Serial Nos. 228,915 and 233,800.

The present invention relates especially to gas-furnaces whose productsof combustion contain a large constituent of carbonic acid whoseendothermic reaction with the contents of the gas-producer is made thebasis' of the cooling action above referred to. An example is found ingas-benches for making retortgas with a distilling-flame of producergas,and particularly those in which coke fuel is burned in the producer. Afurnace of this kind is shown in United States Patent No. 274,829. Infurnaces of this character various influences combine to render itfeasible to burn the fuel-gases with oxygen little, if any, in excess oftheir theoretical requirement. The flame travels for a long distancethrough a refractory heat-retaining region. Secondly, the coke-producerafiords gases consisting largely of carbon monoxid,with little, if any,

of the smoky gases of distillation, which reprocess ofthe aforesaidcharacter and includes certain useful arrangements of conduits, re

generators, and mechanical draft-producing means, such as a fan, wherebya portion of the stack-gases may be diverted from the A stack into theproducer and whereby protection is afforded to the fan by the coolingundergone by the stack-gases before reaching the fan. g

The construction which I provide enables me to cool the draft mixturefor the producer sufficiently to protect the fan and avoid objcctionableslagging and yet introduce it at a sufiiciently high temperature(permissible by reason of thehigh endothermic capacity of the particularstack-gases) as to secure the benefits of the increase in furnacetemperature due to a comparatively high initial temperature of the draftmixture.

In the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 represents a vertical section ofa producerheated retort gas-bench embodying my improvements. Fig. 2represents a section on the line 2 2 of Fig. 1. Fig. 3 represents asection on the line 3 3 of Fig. 1.

The same reference characters represent the same parts in all thefigures.

In the drawings, 10 is the producer, connecting by a gas-conduit 11 withthe burners 12, above which is the furnace or combustion chamber 13,containing the refractory gasretorts 14 and suitable refractory bafflesand walls, whereby the flame is caused to proceed through an extensiveheat-retaining region whose reverberatory or radiative propertiesmaterially aid in dispensing with excess air and affording products ofcombustion rich in carbonic acid. These products frequently contain asmuch as twenty per cent. of carbonic acid in a furnace of the kindillustrated, which means that practically all of the twentyone per cent.of oxygen in atmospheric air has been combined with carbon in the formof C02.

The passages for furnace-air and for products of combustion are notfully illustrated in detail, being familiar in the art. Reference may behad to the aforesaid patent, No. 274,829, for a more completeillustration. 1 do not, of course, confine myself to construetionaldetails, but may embody in various constructional forms the idea hereinillustrated.

The furnace or secondary air enters the combustion-chamber 13 throughthe burners 12 in a plane alongside of the gas-conduit 11 and ispreheated on the continuous plan by the spent gases in passing through aregenerator. The entrance portion of the regenerative passages forfurnace-air is shown at 15 15 in Fig. 3, and a portion of these passagesat 16 in Fig. 1. A portion of the passages for products of combustionthrough which the said products pass from the furnace downwardly in adirection opposite to the furnaceair is shown at 17 and 18. The finalexit is through a passage 19, Fig. 1, and the stacktunnel 20. Thereby aconsiderable portion of the heat of the stack-gases is abstracted andadded to the furnace-air by conduction through the walls of thepassages. 21 represents passages likewise heated by the products ofcombustion and having an antecham- -ber 22 and an exit-chamber orash-pit 23 under the grate of the producer 10. From one of the stack-gaspassages 19 a pipe 24 leads to the antechamber 22 and contains afan-blower 25,whereby a portion of the products of combustion may bediverted into the passages 21. The pipe has an air-inlet 26 anterior tothe fan for admitting air to support combustion in the producer, and therelative proportions of air and products of combustion are regulated bydampers 27 28 in the pipe and air branch.

' From the passage 21 a branch 29, containing a valve or damper 30,leads to the top of the producer 10. By suitably adjusting this valveand a valve 31, controlling the passage under the grate, a downdraft maybe created through the fuel-bed either to the exclusion of the updraftor in conjunction therewith. If the current be divided and the draftproceed both ways and issue from the middle of the fuel-bed, thevelocity of each portion is less than that of a single draft of equalvolume and more time is given for the reactions within the fuel body.

It will be observed that the products of combustion are considerablycooled before passing through the pipe 21 and the fan 25, thus affordingprotection to the mechanism and materials of the fan and creating atemperature-repressing influence of marked benefit in keeping the heatof the producer below the slagging-point of the fuel. By mixing with airthese products are still further cooled and the air preheated by anyresidue of temperature in the gases. in the passages 22 21 thetemperature of the mixture is raised by regenerative action, so that themixture may enter the producer quite hot, though at; a considerablylower temperature than the original temperature of the stack-gases,because of the relatively small surface of the passages 21 22, thecomparative coolness of the stackgases by the time they have reached thechannels in heating relation to these passages, the loss of heat intransmission through the intervening walls, and the admixture of coldair with the stack-gases. If necessary, the delivery-pipe 24 of the fancould of course be connected directly to the ash-pit 23 of the producer.This partial reheating is permissible, owing to the large proportion ofcarbonic acid available for endothermic action. I [ind it possible toconduct the producer process under temperature conditions comparable tothose existing when steam is used or even at a lower temperature. If theproducts of combustion are abstracted at an earlier point in theirtravel and mixed with the air, less preheating of the air by conductionis necessary.

A considerable saving in fuel is effected by my invention, and the gasis cooler and contains a larger proportion of combustible. Iiituminousor other fuel may also be employed, in which case, although the productsof combustion in general will contain less carbonic acid than with acoke fire, the producer naturally runs cooler, owing to the character ofthe fuel.

The independent regulation of the composition of the draft-current tothe producer afforded by a mechanical draft-accelerator, such as a fanin combination with dampers in the air and stack-gas inlets to the fan,is a very important matter, inasmuch as it enables the composition ofthe draft-current to be varied with reference to the temperature of thestackgases, their richness in CO2, and the sluggingpointof theparticular fuel employed. Some fuels slag at as low a temperature as1,400"

"Fahrenheit, while others do not slag objectionably below 2,200 Betweenthese two points there is a wide range of conditions, which are met bythe effective control of the various factors relating to the draft, asdescribed. Moreover, the furnace will sometimes be run so as to producea smaller percentage of CO2 than at other times. I have found that jetpropulsion of the stack-gases as sometimes proposed in gas-producerpractice is unsatisfactory on account of the difficulty orimpossibility. of attaining satisfactory regulation under thevaryingconditions above mentioned, and I thereforeprefer to employ a fanor equivalent mechanical accelerator. I may add that the necessity forcooling the stack-gases before their introduction into the producerarises even with some gases apparently rich enough in CO2 to suppressproducer temperatures to a practical working point, since at hightemperatures, and especially under forced draft, carbonappears tomanifest a selective aflinity for oxygen in preference to carbon dioxid,which is not so apparent when the gases are cooled. The result, as shownby test, is the projection of clinker formations from the twyers intothe producer, which eventually clogs the latter and stops the process.With rich gases the cooling required is of course less than with poorfurnace-gases containing much free oxy-- gen. Such partial coolingsuflices for furnaces such as I have described, where practically alloxygen is burned to CO2, and for this purpose the continuous regeneratorof the gas-bench affords a sufficient cooling, where in other furnacesit would answer not so well or not at all.

What I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is+

1. In gas producing and consuming apparatus the combination of a furnacecombustion-chamber having extensive refractory baffling-surfacesincluding one or more refractory receptacles for the materials undertreatment, a gas-producer connected to supply combustible gas thereto, aregenerator heated by the waste furnace-gases for imparting heat to thefurnace combustion fluid, and a waste-gas passage connecting thewaste-gas outlet of said regenerator with the generating-space of theproducer.

2. In gas producing and consuming apparatus the combination of agas-burning furnace, a gas-producer connected therewith, a

return-conduit for products of combustion nace,a gas-producer connectedtherewith, a regenerator heated by the waste furnace-gases, a waste-gaspassage connecting the Waste-gas outlet of said regenerator with theproducer, a fan-blower in said passage, and means for reheating saidpassage between the fan-blower and the producer by means of wastefurnacegases.

I. In gas-producer apparatus, the combination of a furnace havingextensive refractory bafliing-surfaces, a gas-producer connected tosupply combustible gas to said furnace, a return-conduit for wastefurnace-gases connecting said furnace with the generating-space of theproducer, a continuous regenerator in the line of said conduit, andmeans whereby the furnace combustion fluid is continuously heated byconduction through the walls of said regenerator.

5. In gas-'producer'apparatus, the combina tion of a gas bench-furnacehaving extensive refractory bafliing-surfaces including one or morerefractory retorts, a gas-producer connected tosupply combustible gas tosaid furnace, a return-conduit for Waste furnace-gases connecting thefurnace with the producer, a fan-blower in said conduit, means betweenthe fan-blower and the furnace for cooling the contents of the conduitby removal of heat therefrom, an air-inlet on the suction side of thefan, and means for independently regulating the proportions of air andfu rnace-gases in the draft-current supplied. to the producer by saidfan.

6. A gas producing and consuming apparatus comprising a furnace such asa retort gas-generator, having extensive heat-retaining surfaces'in thepath of the flame, whereby fuel-gases are burned with a minimum ofexcess oxygen, a gas-producer for supplying gas to heat said furnace, acontinuous regenerator having passages in heat-transferring relation forthe products of combustion and the supply-current respectively, aconduit connecting the stack-gas passage with the producersupply-passage and having mechanical draftproducing means such as a fanwhereby a por tion of the products of combustion may be diverted fromthe stack and supplied to the regenerative passage, means for supplyingair to said conduit, and means for regulating the relative proportionsof air and products of combustion in the producer-draft.

7. A gas producing and consuming apparatus comprising a furnace havingextensive refractory surfaces in' the path of the flame, a gas-producerfor supplying-said furnace, a continuous regenerator comprising thepassages 17, 18, 16 and 21 in heating relation,

for products of combustion, furnace-air and producer supply-currentrespectively,the pipe 2st connecting the passages 18 and 21 and havingan air-inlet, whereby products of combustion and air are supplied to theproducer and the mixture preheated, means for propelling theproducer-current, and means for I from said source and having portionsopenregulating the relative proportion of air and ing into saidgenerating-chainber respectively products of combustion in the mixture.at opposite ends of said portion and adapted 8. In gas-producerapparatus, the combinato carry a divided draft-current.

tion of a source of neutral products of com- In witness whereof I havehereunto set my bustion, a gas-producer having a generatinghand, beforetwo subscribing witnesses, this chamber adapted to contain a deep bed of10th day of December, 1904.

fuel, a combustible-gas outlet from said cham- GARLETON ELLIS.

ber at an intermediate point in the length of Witnesses:

its fuel-containing portion, and a conduit A. M. HYATT,

structure for products of combustion leading VVARREN E. DIXON.

